What happened as far as far as the re-issues put out by Sanctuary is I did not agree to the reissues and did not want my songs used. As you may know I started Virgin Steele and in the beginning I wrote most of the music, so I told Sanctuary that I did not want these re-issues and in response they said Fine, but we will re-record these songs with David's band that he calls Virgin Steele and that is what they did. The book of burning is not original Virgin Steele music, it is a re-recording done in the year 2001, done by some new musicians that I never even met, except for Edward Pursino, who is a wonderfull guy and plays great guitar. I want to make it very clear that my problem is with Dave Defeis and not with Ed Pursino who is a gentleman and a very dedicated musician (and who, like myself, also likes dogs). There are only three three heavy metal musicians that have played the Les Paul guitar with such mastery, one of them was Rhandy Rhoads, one of the is Eddie Pursino and the other one is of course Jimmy Page who is actually one of the architects of the music we call heavy metal.

Yes, one day the masters will come out as they were recorded with the original members, and the label that I record for will do this in the months to come. As far as recording again with David, anything is possible, but of course he would have to treat me with respect and not to try to tell me what notes to play. The Sacred demos will come out on Metal Mayhem records and I don't refer to them by that name. To me they are called the Virgin Steel Reunion, I call them that because everybody that played on that was a member of Virgin Steele except for the drummer, who was a friend of mine and a wonderful drummer, his name is Mike Capuano, and he was one of Ritchie Blackmore's best friends, but that is another story !! The bass player is Rob DeMartino who played on some of the classic Virgin Steele albums. Rob's incredible bass technique can be heard throughout the songs but it is especially notable on the song The Final Days.

The Book Of Burning is a very good record, but is it necessary to redo these old songs ? Dave is a very good songwriter, so why does he not do new songs and make new creative statements, why continue to recreate the past ? Virgin Steele of today is very much dominated by David's musical vision, so it is not really a band, but in answer to your question, some of the songs I like very much and some I don't, but even on the songs I don't like I must say the musicianship is of a very high level.

After The Orange Album I did a few more but I had some personal problems and it kept me from being properly focused on my musical career. Regarding the A Minor Disturbance album, this was an instrumental record which had the great bass player Randy Coven. He was recently playing with Yngwie Malmsteen. I am happy to say that I just signed a three CD deal with Frontline Records of Brazil, which is a true metal country and I am honored to have many dedicated fans there, the Url for this record label is http://www.frontlinerock.com.br . As far as Strider is concerned, this was a great record that was poorly recorded in a digital studio. The singer was Mike Tirelli from my band Burning Starr and he did a great job as usual. As for Oxygen, this was a band that I had with a female singer, or should I say that this was a band she had. I spent many years doing this project and I never saw any money or any record deals. It was a bad experience for me and also, the band did not have a permanent drummer, so Bobby Rondinelli of Black Sabbath was hired, he sounded great, but there were problems that even he could not fix. Oxygen was not a Jack Starr project and the style and the songs were not necessarily what I would have done at that time.

To be honest I have not done much since 1994 and i was disgusted with the music business, until 1997 when I got back with Dave for the reunion project. This was the second time I reunited with Dave, the first time was in 1991 when we started a band called Smokestack Lightning, this was a great band and the style of music was a mix of heavy metal and the blues. The big surprise was that on bass guitar we had the original bass player of Foghat, who were one of the biggest groups of the 70's, we stayed together for about a year and we recorded a live album that will be coming out next year on Metal Mayhem Records .

I don't know why I'm not more known, but sometimes it is for the better. I think that if I had big fame in the 80's I might have abused it and today I would be dead. Now of course i am more stable and I think I could handle it better.

Yes, there will be more re-issues of Burning Starr and the label Fronline Records will be putting out 3 of the early CD's. Also I must say that the No Turning Back re-issue on Sentinel Steel records is great and the packaging is awesome, I recommend it to anyone who is curious about Jack Starr or to anyone who is a fan. Also Metal Mayhem did a great job with Blaze Of Glory and Rock The American Way.

As far as I Stand Alone is concerned, I am still recording this and it will come out next year. I am going to California to work in a studio there with Bill Lawrence from the band D'Allen. He is a great drummer and producer and we will be collaborating on some tracks in his studio.

Of course I keep up to date on the metal scene and there are some bands that I like very much like Hammerfall, Rhapsody and Blind Guardian, also I like the guitar sound of Axel Rudi Pell, it reminds me of me, so how could I not like it, haha !!

The new band has the original bass player of Virgin Steele, Joe O'Reilley and the original drummer Joey Avayzian. It is an honor to play with these musicians again and after all these years we still kick ass together like we did in the old days, the only difference is that now we are much better musicians.

The new band will be exactly like the old band Virgin Steele, it will be a time warp, and yes, we have new songs recorded.

There are no definite plans yet to release this album, but it will happen !! Jack is back and that is a fact !! I have killed the demons that were upsetting my life and now I am free to devote myself to music !!

When we play live we will play songs from every album that I ever recorded, except for Rock The American Way, and sometimes we also play Virgin Steele songs that I wrote like Burn The Sun.

My homepage is no more because the host of the page went out of business and he did not have a back-up CD of the web site, so a new one will go up. We are working on that and soon there will be a new one and this time we will back-up the site on a disc.

In closing I would like to thank the readers of Metal Temple for their devotion to heavy metal and to all my metal brothers & sisters, STAY HEAVY, STAY LOUD AND STAY PROUD !!